Because women were under the influence of Islam
laws, their role in the society was rather limited,
and they were totally under the sovereignety of
their husbands. Only rich and intellectual families
could afford to educate their daughters. Towards
the end of the 19C., men of letters began to take
their defense. Only during the "Young
Turk" Revolution in 1908, a first step
towards emancipation was started with the creation
of schools for young girls.
From
1912 and during the First world War and
the War of
Independence, Turkish women had to take
upon themselves new responsabilities that
made them take part in active life. Men
fighting for their country, women brought
a contribution to the national defence :
they worked in state factories, made and
transported amunitions, ploughed lands,
volunteered as nurses. They worked in ministries,
banks, shops...
Under the impulsion of Atatürk after the
declaration of the Republic
en 1923, one of the most sigificant element
in the social revolution was the emancipation
of the women. In 1926 a new code
of civil laws changed the family structure.
Polygamy was abolished and women no longer
had to wear the veil and the long garments
required by religious beliefs.
Women making ammunitions
Divorce and child custody became the right of
both women and men as well as the equality of
inheritance and testimony before a court law (before,
the testimony of two women was equal to that of
one man).
In 1934, the right to vote was granted nationwide
to Turkish women, who were then far ahead of many
women of western countries.
The Charter of the International Labor Organization
(1951) declaring equal wages of both sexes for
equal work, was ratified by Turkey in 1966.
Although all the new regulations brought the status
of women to a much better level, the social class
to which they belong altogether with the family
institutions prevent a real equality between sexes.
Schoolgirls
and young woman in the early 1930s
In the rural areas,
women still prepare food and work artisanally.
Women
preparing the traditional "yufka"
(a thin dough)
Woman
pounding corn
An
old but still beautiful villager woman
This
woman, after placing cocoons in boiling
water to separate the silk
filaments, twists them to make a
thread that is wound on a reel.
